Commentary and analysis to persuade people to become socialist and to act for themselves, organizing democratically and without leaders, to bring about a world of common ownership and free access. We are solely concerned with building a movement of socialists for socialism. We are not reformists with a programme of policies to patch up capitalism.

Wednesday, October 05, 2016

Disciple of Evil (2)

Rows of sick people queue up one afternoon in downtown
Lagos. There are people with crutches, mothers with crying babies, a couple of
wheelchair-bound people and several with bad coughs. This is not a hospital;
it’s a sports center. And they are not waiting to see a doctor; they are here
to see a preacher.

T.B. Joshua is one of
Nigeria’s most controversial clergymen. Besides claiming to have a direct line
to God, this 52-year-old has been performing so-called “healing miracles” for
20 years. He has his own TV shows, two million Facebook fans, sold-out events
and branded merchandise. The latest estimates put his wealth at about $150
million. His church has branches all over the world, from the U.K. to
Australia. He often goes on what he calls “Miracle Crusades” to other nations.

“He exploits the naïveté or desperation of his followers
with no accountability,” says Pradip Thomas, a scholar at the University of
Queensland and co-editor of the book Global and Local Televangelism. A dozen
people died last year when one of his event venues collapsed. Joshua has not
been held legally accountable for the incident…but surely it was another
message from God to him?

Joshua is certainly not the only millionaire priest in
Nigeria.

The first Pentecostal missions arrived in Nigeria in 1910.
By 1970, there were an estimated 300,000 converts, and by the turn of the
century, 30 to 40 million, according to Ruth Marshall, professor at the
University of Toronto’s Departments for the Study of Religion and Political
Science and author of Political Spiritualities: The Pentecostal Revolution in
Nigeria. According to the World Christian Database, some 12 percent of Africans
are Pentecostals.